Developing sustainability-literate citizens through outdoor learning: possibilities for outdoor education in Higher Education

UNESCO's challenge to Higher Education institutions to provide educational leadership in sustainable development, provides an impetus to develop innovative, interdisciplinary curricula and pedagogy. Whereas Higher Education curricula in sustainability and sustainable development have tended to come from the environmental sciences, recent studies have highlighted the need for more holistic, experiential, interdisciplinary approaches. As a pedagogical approach, outdoor learning may have something to offer since it lends itself to holistic and experiential learning and enables integration of knowledge and skills from a range of discipline areas. Outdoor and environmental education research suggests that educational experiences in outdoor settings can be significant in developing environmental sensitivity and knowledge. Such knowledge and attitudes are components of ecological literacy and, more recently, sustainability literacy. This paper considers how outdoor experiential pedagogy might contribute to the current sustainability education agenda. It focuses on Higher Education since this sector has the obligation and the capability of instigating a 'ripple' effect' in developing sustainability-literate citizens. It discusses possibilities and issues arising from a review of outdoor, environmental and sustainability education literature, particularly, but not exclusively, from the UK. The paper is a precursor to an empirical study into how outdoor learning might contribute to the development of sustainability-literate graduates.     

Developing sustainability-literate citizens through outdoor learning: possibilities for outdoor education in Higher Education

UNESCO's challenge to Higher Education institutions to provide educational leadership in sustainable development, provides an impetus to develop innovative, interdisciplinary curricula and pedagogy. Whereas Higher Education curricula in sustainability and sustainable development have tended to come from the environmental sciences, recent studies have highlighted the need for more holistic, experiential, interdisciplinary approaches. As a pedagogical approach, outdoor learning may have something to offer since it lends itself to holistic and experiential learning and enables integration of knowledge and skills from a range of discipline areas. Outdoor and environmental education research suggests that educational experiences in outdoor settings can be significant in developing environmental sensitivity and knowledge. Such knowledge and attitudes are components of ecological literacy and, more recently, sustainability literacy. This paper considers how outdoor experiential pedagogy might contribute to the current sustainability education agenda. It focuses on Higher Education since this sector has the obligation and the capability of instigating a ‘ripple’ effect' in developing sustainability-literate citizens. It discusses possibilities and issues arising from a review of outdoor, environmental and sustainability education literature, particularly, but not exclusively, from the UK. The paper is a precursor to an empirical study into how outdoor learning might contribute to the development of sustainability-literate graduates.     

教育学:人文科学抑或社会科学?——兼与张楚廷先生商榷

教育学属于人文科学还是社会科学,这是一个非常基本的命题。回答该问题的方式不同,答案也就不同,而且回答方式对教育学的建设思路有着非常直接的影响。从历史上看,教育学学科属性发生了很大变化,它由传统的人文科学逐渐转向社会科学。而在20世纪中叶之后,教育学出现了向综合科学方向发展的态势。这说明教育学既具有人文科学的禀赋,也具有社会科学的倾向,而目下则呈现出多元化发展态势。面对教育功利化趋向,教育必须回归其自身,教育应成为价值主体而不能单纯地作为工具出现。其中,教育学的人文价值取向是教育学必须时刻观照的一个目标,而作为综合科学的教育学更有利于教育学学科的自身发展。     

Exploring the role and value of creativity in education for sustainability

Creativity, innovation and divergent thinking are routinely expected to help people envision and implement alternative practices to the status quo. However, these do not feature strongly in the literature on education for sustainability in higher education (HE), and especially graduate competencies or capabilities for sustainability. The paper makes the case for the importance of creativity in education for sustainability (EfS), and argues that innovation is at the heart of moving societies towards more sustainable paths. In other words, creativity is an essential part of learning for sustainability. A critical perspective is offered, by highlighting the effects of the theoretical roots of sustainability and environmental education in the ecological sciences, the traditional and still dominant construction of learning and teaching in HE and EfS, and the challenges and rewards that supporting creativity presents for learners and teachers in this field.     

Philosophical Review of Pragmatism as a Basis for Learning by Developing Pedagogy

This article discusses the use of a pragmatic approach as the philosophical foundation of pedagogy in Finnish universities of applied sciences. It is presented that the mission of the universities of applied sciences falls into the interpretive paradigm of social sciences. This view is used as a starting point for a discussion about pragmatism in higher education. The Learning by Developing (LbD) action model is introduced, analyzed and compared to pragmatism. The paper concludes that, at least in practice‐oriented academic subjects, a pragmatic approach to pedagogy, as well as the LbD action model, is effective and could be considered in several universities as the basis of philosophy of pedagogy.     

Leaving the classroom: a didactic framework for education in environmental sciences

In Continuous Education curricula in Spain, the programs on sciences of the environment are aimed toward understandings of sustainability. Teaching practice rarely leaves the classroom for outdoor field studies. At the same time, teaching practice is generally focused on examples of how human activities are harmful for ecosystems. From a pedagogic point of view, it is less effective to teach environmental science with negative examples such as catastrophe, tragedy, and crisis. Rather, teaching environmental sciences and sustainable development might be focused on positive human-environment relationships, which is both important for the further development of students and educators. Within rural settings, there are many such examples of positive relationships that can be emphasized and integrated into the curriculum. In this article, we propose teaching environmental sciences through immersion in rural cultural life. We discuss how fieldwork serves as a learning methodology. When students are engaged through research with traditional cultural practices of environmental management, which is a part of the real and traditional culture of a region, they better understand how positive pedagogy instead of pedagogy structured around how not-to-do examples, can be used to stimulate the interactions between humans and the environment with their students. In this way, cultural goods serve as teaching resources in science and environmental education. What we present is authentic cases where adults involved in a course of Continuous Education explore ‘environmentally-friendly’ practices of traditional agriculture in Asturias (north of Spain), employing methodologies of cultural studies.     

生命、实践和教育学学科身份的寻求：“教化”的历史考察

教化是德国的一个极具德意志民族特色的核心概念。作为一种极具新人文主义和美学色彩的生命理想,教化的目标不是教育技术的可替换的产品,而是生命的唤醒和不断生成。它强调,教育只能是一种激发和促进人的自我活动的特殊的实践形式,而非一种技术性的制作活动;关于这种活动的反思的教育知识也只能是（实践）教育学而非教育科学,因为以心理学和...     

The science(s) of adult education

This article deals with the problems of forming a scientific system for adult education. The first part contains different concepts of sciences of education in developed countries, with a special emphasis on the difference between pedagogy as ‘practical theory’ and the sciences of education than can withstand meta‐scientific criteria. This is followed by a survey of the educological system of the knowledge of education, and the scientific and non‐scientific knowledge of adult education are contrasted. To enable us to distinguish unambiguously between scientific and non‐scientific knowledge the survey contains some major criteria for determining whether a discipline is a science or not. In this context andragogy, as well as pedagogy, are defined as ‘technological’ disciplines with the task of applying the principles discovered by the sciences of adult education: the educational psychology of adults, the sociology of adult education, the economics of adult education and the educational anthropology. In other words, andragogy is the ‘praxiology of adult education’, i.e. the science of applying scientific knowledge about adult education in the practice of that education. Andragogy could become ‘the general science of adult education’ and acquire a supra‐technological character if it grew into a science of the effectiveness of systems of adult education. In that case andragogy would study the interaction between the elements of the system as well as the interaction between these elements and the subsystems of the educational environment.     

Schools as Knowledge-Building Organizations: Thirty Years of Design Research

In this article we review the Knowledge-Building literature, unpacking its conceptual framework, principle-based pedagogy, distinctive features, and issues regarding scalability and sustainability. The Knowledge-Building goal is to reframe education as a knowledge-creating enterprise, engaging students from the earliest years of schooling. Despite a 30-year program of research and development and recognition that there is a close fit between Knowledge Building and efforts to meet knowledge society needs, Knowledge Building is frequently reinterpreted along the general lines of bringing constructivist learning into schooling rather than means to reframing education as a knowledge-creating enterprise. This article aims to clarify Knowledge-Building goals and to make the opportunities afforded by Knowledge Building more accessible.     

游离于边缘与中心——三大科学门类下教育学学科归属探析

教育学的学科归属仍然模糊混沌,很多学者都从"三大科学"门类的视野下探究教育学的学科归属。如果说当下的"三大科学"门类组成了大科学的系统,那么教育学应该是横跨三大科学门类,具有一定的综合性,同时也彰显了教育学的独特性。这种独特性是教育学这门学科的中心,正是由于存在这个中心,教育学学科的落脚点是自我归属.     

师范教育中的特殊教育与特殊教育学

教育不等于教育学。师范院校的教育专业不等于教育学专业。对于特殊教育来说 ,特殊教育学专业同样也不能代替聋校语文、聋校数学、聋校外语、聋校体育等面向具体学科的专业。学科特点与教育学相通的特殊教育学只是应该设置的面向特殊教育的专业中的一个部分。师范院校设置的有关特殊教育的专业中 ,除了应该包括特殊教育学专业之外 ,还应该包括其他面向基层特殊学校特定课程的各种专业。     

Teaching science as a cultural way of knowing: merging authentic inquiry, nature of science, and multicultural strategies

Due to the growing number of students from populations underrepresented in the sciences, there is an intensified need to consider alternatives to traditional science instruction. Inquiry-based instructional approaches provide promise and possibility for engaging underrepresented students in the activities of science. However, inquiry-based instruction without culturally relevant pedagogy and instructional congruency, may not be sufficient to support non-mainstream students in science learning, and may even serve to challenge students’ cultural ways of knowing. This conceptual paper suggests that aligning reform efforts in science education to the field of multicultural education would buttress efforts to reach underrepresented student groups in science. This includes providing culturally relevant instruction and instruction toward making the assumptions of science explicit, in particular. To this end, this paper draws from literature in multicultural education to propose that deconstructing science through instruction in NOS may support Latino, African American and English language learning students in science learning.     

Conversations on cultural sustainability: stimuli for embedding Indigenous knowledges and ways of being into curriculum

While Australian higher education agendas and literature prioritise Indigenous knowledges and perspectives across policy, curriculum and pedagogy, enacting this in practice remains problematic and contentious. Often the result is the inclusion of simplified Indigenous knowledges, rather than sustained engagement with and embedding of multiple and ‘messy’ ontological and epistemological positions. This paper explores ways of engaging with this ‘messiness’. Taking messiness as a focal point within our own context of teacher education at a regional university, this agenda and tension inform an ongoing dialogue about ways of assuring a conscious approach to cultural sustainability to embed, value and foreground Indigenous knowledges and ways of being and doing in curriculum. This endeavour can be conceptualised as a heuristic project, an ongoing conversation in response to multiple stimuli rather than a fixed endpoint or framework. In response to this exploration, this paper presents the stimuli for our conversation: situated, plural and reflexive knowledges that work together in inherently relational ways to nourish the cultural sustainability of Indigenous knowledges.     

Multicultural Education From a Pedagogical Perspective: A Response to Radical Critiques

This paper critically reviews radical critiques of multicultural education from a pedagogical perspective. Goals for the paper are: to reveal agreement between radical and multicultural discourse about transformative pedagogy, exemplify a body of literature about pedagogical struggles not recognized by radical critics, and encourage interchange between these groups in regard to critical multicultural education.The authors are interested in transformative, multicultural pedagogy, which is associated with critical multicultural education. They seek to know the extent to which transformative multicultural pedagogy is addressed within radical critiques of multicultural education. They question the extent to which voices of teachers and students engaged in real transformative pedagogy are acknowledged by radical critics.Ideological agreement is found between radical critics and multicultural educators in regard to transformative pedagogy. However, radical critics do not acknowledge this agreement, or perceive multicultural education as transformative. In response, the authors reference a growing body of literature that portrays real, transformative, multicultural pedagogy in action in school and university classrooms. They encourage radical critics to read this literature and consider alliances between radical and multicultural theory and practice.     

Uncovering important 21st-century skills for sustainable career development of social sciences graduates: A systematic review

BackgroundTeaching 21st-century skills is widely recognized as an important task of higher education. However, an overview of which skills students need to obtain a sustainable career is missing. Using the Framework for 21st Century Learning (P21, 2019a) and the model of sustainable careers (de Vos et al., 2020), we aimed to take stock of current knowledge on which 21st-century skills are considered important for social sciences students’ sustainable career development and how these skills contribute to their career sustainability.MethodsFor this systematic review, we searched EconLit, ERIC, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), PsycINFO, Scopus, Sociological Abstracts, and Web of Science on May 28, 2021. We selected peer-reviewed empirical articles that were published between 2003 and 2019 and addressed graduates' and employers' perspectives on the skills needed for social sciences graduates’ career sustainability. Twelve articles met all our selection criteria and were included for a thematic analysis after quality appraisal.ResultsThe included articles operationalized the career sustainability of social sciences graduates mostly in terms of finding a job and maintaining employment, to a lesser extent as high job performance, job satisfaction, and work engagement. Communication and problem solving skills were most frequently reported by both social sciences graduates and employers as crucial for a sustainable career. In addition, critical thinking, initiative and self-direction, and social and cross-cultural skills were also reported as important skills. None of the studies investigated mechanisms that would explain how these skills would exactly contribute to social science graduates’ career sustainability.DiscussionThe results of this review showed that studies to date have addressed only a limited number of career sustainability indicators. Moreover, explanatory mechanisms have largely been ignored. This is an important gap in the literature that future studies would need to address by building on the existing sustainable career development models.     

Reframing primary curriculum through concepts of place

Australian curricula name “sustainability” as a key priority area with implications for preparing pre-service teachers. In the research that generated this paper, we asked: How can framing teaching through space and place inform pre-service teachers’ pedagogical thinking and practice? In new third year Bachelor of Education (primary) subject Understanding Space and Place, Australian teacher education students shared online responses to focus questions and readings framing education through place, designed and taught a unit of study “beyond the classroom” to children in their professional placements and reflected on changes in their theoretical, philosophical, and curriculum goals. Data from these forum posts were analysed through Somerville’s three “enabling place pedagogy” categories of embodiment, storylines, and cultural contact zones. Many students came to re-imagine their teaching roles and understand how a place pedagogy framework can operate to expand the possibilities of teaching and learning sustainability through creative and embodied place-making experiences in local places.     

In defence of a pedagogy of the heart: theory and practice in the use of imaginal knowledge

This article outlines one of the theoretical approaches to pedagogy of the heart, drawing specifically on the work of Hillman and his concept of imaginal knowledge. Imaginal knowledge, as opposed to evidence-based and critical pedagogy, illuminates the imagination and moves the heart towards humanistic action. In this paper, we argue that this is an area neglected in the education of professionals. The paper provides a number of methodological strategies for integrating education of the heart with critical and evidence-based knowledge. These strategies deal with how to evoke the imagination and move the heart and then progress to issues of classroom communication and the management of emotions. The context is the teaching of supporting sciences to health professionals in the university sector.     

A review of photovoice applications in environment,sustainability, and conservation contexts: is the method maintaining its emancipatory intents?

Abstract

Photovoice, a Participatory Action Research method developed by Wang and Burris, has gained popularity as a pedagogical tool to engage youth with environmental, sustainability, and conservation issues. Influenced by Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, feminist theory, and documentary photography, photovoice supports reflection about place, critical dialogue about community issues, and social change by reaching policymakers. Some scholars have modified the method and applied varying frameworks to increase relevance for diverse participants. However, adaptation also may lose the original tenets. Through a scoping review, this study examined methodological applications to science, conservation, and sustainability education and whether emerging approaches align with Wang and Burris’ original goals. The scoping review identified and analyzed four applications of photovoice: i) place as pedagogy, ii) conservation and sustainability, iii) STEM teaching; and iv) decolonizing education. Current scholarship shows promise for photovoice in environmental education applications to support participatory, diverse, and equitable educational settings, but some projects would benefit from more explicit attention to the original emancipatory intents of the method.     

Preparing elementary education majors to teach science using an inquiry-based approach: the Full Option Science System

Science education traditionally has received insufficient attention. As a literature review shows, teacher preparation in science will be best served by improvements in pedagogy and in the content of required undergraduate science courses. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (1993, 1995) and the National Research Council (1993, 1995) have addressed this need in advocating a "science for all" that is highly significant for diverse learners. The No Child Left Behind Act emphasizes that reform of teacher preparation is part of an urgent national commitment to bring high-quality teacher candidates into the classroom. The Gallaudet University undergraduate teacher education program has developed an inquiry-based course that emphasizes integration of the sciences. Acquisition of the Full Option Science System, and its adaptation to and integration into the course, has resulted in specific curricular changes and positive results.     

文化存在论教育学论纲——文化存在论教育学产生的时代背景与基本主张

文化存在论教育学理论是在教育学这门学科究竟主要是一门以哲学运思为主的精神科学,还是一门方法至上的实证科学这一历史性交锋中应运而生的。文化存在论教育学的提出是对实证主义范式在教育学领域过度宣扬的匡正。教育学是一门有着浓郁的强烈的丰富的人文性、艺术性、审美性、价值性和伦理性的学科。从学科嬗变史、学科本质、学科研究方法借鉴路线图等来考察,我们可以得出这样的结论,教育学作为一门“成人”的学科所具有的境遇性、生命性、个殊性、复杂性等特质无法被完全数据化的定量研究所把握。文化存在论教育学分别从教育本质、教育目的及教育方法出发,聚焦三个根本性问题:儿童“是”什么?儿童会成“为”什么?儿童之所以会成“为”社会与文化所期望的那个样子,需“要”什么?针对这三个根本问题,文化存在论教育学提出了理想的教育应确立的四项重要原则:首先,教育要关注儿童的“精神”或者“生命”成长,关注儿童的心灵世界、精神世界、生命世界;其次,教育是“相遇”的历程,是一场充满“境遇”的人生旅程,多元、丰富、奇幻的教育孕育着儿童各种生长的可能性,教育既关怀当下,又指向未来的生活;再次,教育要注重“关系”的营建,魅力在于生活世界中诸般“关系”的和谐与共融,儿童与教师在美好的教育“关系”中相濡以沫,砥砺前行;最后,儿童是“文化”的存在,教育要关注文化在陶冶滋养儿童的向善、求真、育美中的重要作用。